New chapter is go! ...Finally.
- Gira
Our apartment building is fairly close to the site of this year's Reaping. Granted, the housing district is strategically placed to be as claustrophobically close to the rest of the District as it can possibly be. But it still means that less time is spent walking silently alongside my family. It's almost a relief when I mumble farewells to my parents, give Alenine a comparatively warm-and-fuzzy smile, and head off to my designated area.
I am now standing with the other fifteen-year-olds of District Three. Evidently, the population is so large this year that anyone not liable to be a Tribute has been relocated to the surrounding area, where I can see that television screens are set up to allow them to observe from the comfort of their very own side alley. Shaking my head slightly, I sigh and fiddle somewhat vacantly with my watch as people slowly trickle in. No one expects anything interesting out of this, just more people waiting around for someone to go up there and die.
There's quite a bit of mumbling between the possible Tributes; it is hushed, for the simple reason that this is a Reaping we're all attending, but the murmur is definitely there. And growing louder, if I'm not mistaken. I look up; there is now a man dressed in what appears to be a sparkling overcoat walking on to the stage, with an almost comically large top hat and purple hair that's longer and definitely more effeminate than my own. When he turns to the crowd, I recognize him – as I expected, this is Vladimir Trophstar, our resident Capitol attendant for the honorable and revolutionary Hunger Games Reaping Day.
...Of course, they don't actually use the word 'revolutionary'. After the Dark Days, all Capitol officials carefully sidestep anything that even moderately suggests a revolution of any kind.
Vladimir is surprisingly controlled, compared to what I've seen of the other Capitol assistants who have come flying in from years and Districts past. He doesn't seem to waste words. Instead, he goes almost directly into a recital of the Treaty of Treason, a document describing the sins of our ancestors and which has been embedded into our brains for years. Around him, a migraine-inducing array of colors is slapped onto the otherwise grayscale walls of the nearby buildings, in the form of distracting banners. Almost all of them are commemorating either the current Hunger Games (according to a particularly vivid purple one to my left, it's the fortieth) or the up-and-coming political figure of the day, the newly elected President Coriolanus Snow.
"These next few days," he concludes, "will be a time both for repentance and celebration as we move on into a bright future, as the united nation of Panem."
...Well, he's making a valiant effort. I give him that.
He continues to talk a bit longer about the importance of sticking together as a united nation under the doubtless 'strain' that will come from growing in to a new president (the last one has been here for years, and many people were amazed that he didn't keel over before he did). After a bit more filibusters in that same vein, he finally got to the part which most of us wanted to see (read: get over with).
"And now we will pull the Tributes!"
There is a round of polite clapping, though it was nowhere near the hearty applause that had come from District Four a short while ago. If people in the District didn't pretend that they enjoyed this, well... long story short, very bad things would happen to the District with a suspiciously foggy cover story from the Capitol.
The infamous Reaping Ball is pushed to the stage by a single Peacekeeper. (I, of course, had no clue how heavy it was, but considering that the thing looked like it would overflow when Vladimir opened it, I figured that had to be a merit on the Peacekeeper's part.) There is a similarly low amount of propaganda and prancing this time, and instead Vladimir reaches swiftly for the Reaping Ball. Unfortunately, it didn't explode in a torrent of paper, and indeed only a few slipped out. The audience perked up.
They die down again when Vladimir retrieves the slips, chuckles nervously, and put them back in. (And there we thought that someone would be saved from the Reaping. Oh, we silly, stupid civilians...) He then reaches in to the Reaping Ball and comes up with a single slip of paper.
"Ether Sintakks! Do we have an Ether Sintakks in the audience?"
Oh, the hilarity of the Capitol. There is a small amount of nervous chuckling from those who felt obliged, so as not to invoke any amount of wrath. (Not that it would help.) However, it soon became obvious from the stirring in the fourteen-year-old sector that the girl was from there... and indeed, a child appears from the din and floats wispily up to the stage. She wasn't crying – but I soon realize that it was because she was more shellshocked than anything else.
Vladimir did at least make an attempt to cheer her up and rally the crowd at the same time. But even just putting his arm around her shoulder makes the girl shiver in absolute terror, and the crowd remains silent this time. They also remain silent as the females' Reaping Ball is taken away, and the males' is dragged in. Of course, this Reaping Ball looks exactly like the other one, and it gets the same reaction: we're watching, but with dead stares on our faces.
Of course, there's always the possibility that the male Reaping Ball will carry my name in it. But it could carry the name of any other boy in this entire District. That's the danger we all face every year, I suppose.
Vladimir reaches in to the Reaping Ball and mercifully makes it quick and simple – once again, he doesn't flounce around like some other hosts I could mention, who tried to 'spice' their performances with explosions or fetish wear (I kid you not; this is the Capitol we're talking about, remember?). Instead, he simply pulls out a slip of paper, turns to face the audience, and reads out the name of District Three's second damned one.
"Beetee Farwyre."
Oh... um...
Oh.
The next thing I know, I'm being pushed through the crowd, the daunting white cloaks of Peacekeepers hovering behind me. I can't even respond at all; walking is a struggle. But fortunately these Peacekeepers know that I'm just another pig to the slaughter and they try not to kill me before I get in the arena; eventually, their guns prod me up to stage, and I look over the crowd. There is no attempt to hide the pathetic looking horror on my face right now. I'm sure everyone else is laughing, and I fight a losing battle to keep my face from flushing.
Actually...
No. No, they're not laughing.
They're not doing anything at all.
Every single person in District Three is staring directly at me, knowing I am going to die, and they don't move a muscle. I'm standing here on a pedestal, paralyzed by... some nameless flood of emotion, and I'm looking over at the entire District. There's no reaction whatsoever, past maybe the very short clapping of people who don't want to get shot at later.
It's only when you're about to die at their hands that you realize the truth, the truth that you've probably subscribed to for almost every year of your life. Because, with certain death at hand...
No one cares.
I am pulled away into the Justice Building; it's all I can do to keep standing, much less try to escape. I follow without complaint, painfully aware of the dead expression that must be sitting on my face, with no resistance whatsoever. The same expression, I realize too late, that I've seen on the faces of every Tribute who's ever stood in my place ever, even that girl... what was her name? I don't remember. It doesn't matter anyway. I saw the same thing on her face, and that's how I know what I look like.
All of them realized the same thing: no one cares. And when they tried to go back, tell the others, warn them? Once again: no one cares. And now there's one more person who's having this terrible epiphany, and no one can remember his name. Wonder why? Oh yes, that's right: no one cares.
xxxx
By the time I wake up again, it is in a bed surprisingly more comfortable than my own, but plagued by the occasional bump. I can hear, vaguely, the rumbling of something beneath me... am I on a train? When was the last time I was on a train? It takes a while for reality to set in, for me to remember why I'm in this comfortable bed on this rare commodity of transportation. And once I realize what that is, I emit a small and pathetic-sounding groan and attempt to submerge my head completely within my pillow.
Unfortunately, this doesn't work, and I am further interrupted by someone walking in the room right then. I don't move to try and identify them, and they say nothing at all; but a few seconds later, the door closes again, and I appear to be alone with my quickly-deteriorating thoughts. I pull the covers farther over me, still under the delusion that this bed can somehow erase everything that has happened to me in this insane new world.
It doesn't.
Eventually I figure that the lack of people coming in to whine at me is a bad thing, and I groggily get up. Whatever clothes I had been wearing before have been replaced by a white shirt and what appear to be sweatpants. Slowly, I look around at the multicolored globs of nondescriptiveness that is my environment, searching for a blackish bit that could possibly be my glasses. Fortunately, I soon find them... and realize that they are not my glasses.
But I can still see out of them... actually, even better than I could before. Why is that? Whatever happened to make the old pair obsolete? Those were perfectly good... I only bought them seven or eight years ago...
I wonder if they were able to make me take an eye exam while I was asleep. Or knocked out, I realize suddenly. Was that what happened? Did I faint somewhere along the line? To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't put something like that past myself, though that still doesn't mean that I'm not embarrassed about it. Everyone is already giving me flak for seeming too much like a girl; fainting when things get too stressful is not going to help my case. And it's not going to help my 'sponsors' either, I remember – though, it's not like I'm actually going to get any.
The only thing I can do is hope that I did it in a non-filmed location (fat chance) and go out to explore the rest of the train.
I slowly open the door, wincing as the creaking isn't quite swallowed by the clamor of the train car's wheels. But no one comes springing out to yell at me, so I carefully step out, looking around. I'm standing near the middle of a car with doors running down a narrow hallway on both sides; these doors run the length of the train, at regular intervals. This must be some kind of 'home room' car. Everything is either red or brown; the natural colors are a little concerning to someone accustomed to the nasty-looking blues and grays of District Three.
Unwilling to let another pointless thing stop me, I walk down to one end of the car; before I can get there, however, the door opens and I am faced with a girl.
She doesn't look much older than I do, but her hair is brown and cut short, and she stares at me with slightly dazed eyes. Her expression changes foggily and after several seconds of delay, but when she sees me, she disappears again. I am reminded of the silent person who entered my room earlier; this girl didn't say a word, either. Thoughtfully, I note this for later.
Figuring that any sign of life on this train was a good thing, I followed the brown-haired girl where she had left through the door, and after a brief hop from one car to another (which I admit kind of gave me a spook) I found myself in a similarly-lit car, this time with a few tables scattered around. Everything is still very narrow, even though it's highly decorated; I have to wonder just how difficult it is to design cars for such a narrow space, so that people can reasonably use it but still be able to walk on through.
"Excuse me," I call out to the girl, who is opening the door to the next car. She turns around, startled, but before I can do anything else, she puts out a hand and disappears again. I figure this is a sign for me to stop, so now that I have a command, I actually bother to follow it. A chair is pulled out from its position and I sit down, drumming my fingers slightly on the table. Wherever that girl went, I hope she didn't just leave me here...
Though as it turns out, she didn't. When the door opened again it wasn't the quiet girl, but Vladimir. Go figure.
"Feeling better?" he asks immediately. Though his voice sounded calm, collected, and probably chick-magnet material up on stage, right now there's none of that – I know I said he didn't have anything excess, but now I realize that it was just a subtle form of flashiness. In his voice now is nothing but concern for my well being.
What a joke.
"I... think so," I mumble, not really feeling up to delivering this particular piece of my mind. "Um... where are we?"
Vladimir glanced out the window and thought for a moment. "Somewhere near District One, I think. We should be nearing the Capitol soon, so get yourself ready. Do whatever you have to do." He paused. "Do you need me to show you back to your room?"
I'm about to inform him that this entire train is practically one long hallway and it's very hard to lose your way in such a linear area, but once again, I don't really feel like it, so all I do is nod and float after him as he leads our little procession back through the few cars I left. Once I get there, he shuts the door on me, leaving him and the brown-haired girl off to their own devices until we get to the Capitol.
Devices...
No!
It's only just now that I realize something. I've left the music box. The music box... wasn't that so important? It was! I was supposed to finish it last night, after the Reaping had ended. I decided there that the faint or whatever I did must have seriously tampered with my internal clock – even more than it already was – because that felt like much more than a day ago. It felt... very far away.
Probably, I finally figure, because back then, I had some delusion that I was safe from the Reaping Ball. Just like everyone else in that District.
Even though I know by now that I can't afford to waste time thinking about impossible things like the music box, there really isn't anything else I'd like to think about instead – particularly what's going to happen once we get into the Capitol. I've watched the mandatory parts of the Games enough times to know that eventually, I'm going to be put in some ridiculous outfit and sent around on a chariot with... er, that girl. (I still can't remember her name.) Then, interviews. Then, I die.
I decide to go back to worrying about the music box.
It doesn't matter to me if Alenine finds it; more power to her if she does. She'll recognize it, and she'll get that I made it for her, right? Of course, there's always the possibility that one of my parents will find it and throw it out with the other contents of my room, but knowing them they'll just close the door and tell Alenine that it is a bad, bad room and that she should never go inside. Whether she would actually listen to them... I don't know. She does some funny things sometimes.
Once again, I'm interrupted from my thoughts by a knock on the door, and then silence. After a beat, I realize that I'm expected to actually respond to this. "...Oh! Uh, come in."
Vladimir's tall figure materializes in the doorway, and I notice for the first time that he is holding a clipboard, which he is scrawling furiously on. But a second later his attention is on me. "Thinking you can go au naturel?" He chuckles. "Oh, yes, District Three... wouldn't expect you to do otherwise. Silly me. Well, come along, Mr. Farwyre."
I follow him out and down the train once again; we are joined later by the brown-haired girl and the female Tribute. And all I'm thinking is, Mr. Farwyre?