Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new reaping chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, Chapter #7: Pickaxed Dreams of Death. I know that it has been over two weeks since the last update, and all I'm able to do is apologize, wince with a smile and try to not have it happen again. As I let a recent reader and submitter know, these of all the types of chapters in SYOTS to write, are my least favorite. While I love reading these tributes, putting it to the screen and giving everyone distinct personalities and not having things turn into information dumps proves to be quite the task. I also do most of my writing in one or two sittings, usually just one if I can help it. I like having the reaping chapters be in the mix of 5k words minimum as you saw with District 6, because having anything shorter feels absolutely incomplete, so mix the fact I want to write 5k in one sitting and see how it goes... I'm absolutely crazy. Then at times it also means I have a weak tribute and making that son of a gun interesting also is disadvantageous. The turnout of reviews and reading what you guys say makes up for it though, more often than not, so I digress. Here we are!

This is the District 12 reaping, a reason why I love this out of order reasoning because, jeez, normally the poor District 12 tributes have to wait last to be read and now you guys are in second! I'm still being anonymous on whose tributes these are, but ya'll reviewers are quite bad at keeping secrets lol. I got my schedule for my senior year of high school, and am pretty stoked with my three AP classes (got my scores for junior year on Friday, two 5's, woot woot!) and other blah, blahstuff. Anyways, enjoy the District 12 reaping, Chapter #7: Pickaxed Dreams of Death.


Amber Proctor: District 12 Female P.O.V (16)


Her hands grip the handle of the knife as if it is the very last piece of the earthly world saving her from death. The stick rests in her lap, pointing upwards like a weather vane, stirring somewhat as the girl moves with it, the serrated edge scraping up, up, up and she's reminding herself of chicken guts splattering on the back porch, blood sizzling in the roasting sun, crimson streaks of life painting the wood a dark black... and she slices up too far, cutting her finger.

"Dammit..." the girl swears, biting down on her hand and sucking up the blood into her mouth. The taste is far too bitter, and she's wanting to hurl at the very faint feeling touching her lips. Sixteen year-old Amber Proctor goes back to whittling away at the stick till the end she's been hacking away at it sharp and gleaming in the hazy morning rays of sunlight. Over by the other end of the porch, arms crossed over, is her sister Tara, young and absolutely rolling her eyes in a ludicrous manner.

"What are you going to do with that, Amber?" she taunts. "Kill a salamander?"

"Maybe," Amber shrugs. "Would you like to see me try?"

"No, I wouldn't."

Amber leans up against the newly made spear, blonde hair in a ponytail pulled back revealing her pale forehead and gleaming sapphire isle eyes. She does not speak, but instead stares ahead at her sister. Tara raises an eyebrow at the odd action, as all the older sibling is doing is actually bearing her eyes into Tara's, arms crawling up in a strange uncomfortable crawl. Amber watches scenarios flash by which nearly send her to her knees. Her sister, who's twelve, has her first viable reaping, and she imagines the spear going straight through the younger girl's back, copper and organs flaying everywhere while Tara collapses to her knees. Amber can picture herself sitting in the living room watching the television screen, arms out as she tries, she fights to save her sister, and mourns her death in secret. The blonde begins to shake violently at the thought, shuddering and dropping the spear. Tara's eyes widen and she rushes over to her.

"Amber! Amber, snap out of it! You're just imagining things!"

Her sister's voice is hitting a barrier, cold and black, silent and dark, a mallet pounding again the stone till it breaks, collapsing like a statue of President Coriolanus Snow. Amber juts out of the vision, gripping her sister's arms so hard that her fingers press indents in Tara's arm. "I saw you die, Tara! I saw it, I saw it!"

"It's just your mind playing tricks..." Tara soothes her older sibling, tiny and skinny arms clutching around her shoulders. "It's my first year, Amber. If anyone needs to be worried, it's you. My chances of being picked are slim! I'll be fine!"

"But I felt it Tara! You're not listening to me, I-" Amber growls, but Tara kisses her sister to shut her up, the action being quite effective, and Amber's entire mind shuts down, blank and unresponsive.

Tara backs up, her own thunderstorm gray eyes reflecting an entire world of sadness and emptiness, pity looping through nickel rings and lacing the lining of her heart. "I know you just want to protect me, Amber, but I'm fine. I should be the one worrying about you. I can't have you leave..." She leaves a lingering hand on Amber's face, and the older girl shivers despite being underneath the harsh glow of the sunlight above, cold hands gripping a cold cheek, and Tara gives a lasting smile, floating back inside.

Amber stays still for a few moments, breathing heavily before glancing down at the spear. She sneers at it, picking up the weapon and chucking it as far as she can above her head into the backyard. It sticks up into a tree a good ten yards away from her, stuck in a wedge about fifteen feet high. She looks down at her hand in surprise at the strength, completely taken aback by the amount of sheer power in her throwing arm. Amber's always known she had some sort of ability to lift heavy boxes and weapons when in her off time, but she's always had horrible motor skills in flinging objects across a room.

She sits down in the grass of the backyard, letting the emerald waves take her away, whispers clinging on the wind and sweet valley songs drifting down from the clouds. Her thoughts drift back to her sister, and Amber remembers when she saw Tara come into the world of Panem. It is the first and last time she ever thinks a dark thought about her sister, as Amber knows too much of Panem at such a young age and wishes that her sister will never have to experience the travesties that others like her will have to endure. It's been at that point forward that Tara is Amber's life, and she's unsure whether or not a bond like this is meant to exist. Is it parasitic? She knows, deep down, though Tara hardly says anything, that it bothers her. The Seam look in Tara, stormy eyes, dark soil hair, olive skin... it gives away a particular edge that glints off of glares and Amber is beyond proud to say Tara is her sister.

Amber decides to not dwell on Tara any longer, and it's all because she's upset about it. She, at times, wants to wring her sister's neck. Nothing major, just a snap and twist, and then it's all over... the girl blinks, wondering where on Earth that idea had come from into her head. The outside air no longer feels warm, and Amber runs her hands over her arms. It makes sense to the blonde, though rarely, about why she loves Tara and cares for her so much. She's the last and only reminder of her mother in a good light. At the very least, the woman who created her, created her sister and Amber only wants to use that spear to shove in between her mother's ribs. Laurel Williams - at least, that's what Amber thinks her mother's name is, for she hasn't ever thought of it unless on days where it mattered - is the reason why she hates love. Everything is perfect in Amber Proctor's world. Grades are good, boys are good, family is good, and the Hunger Games do not seem threatening to her at ten. All of that comes to a screeching halt, a single moment shattered with a sledge hammer when she comes home early from school and sees Laurel, her mother, standing in Amber's bedroom kissing some other man, hands down his pants, his hands on her chest, and Amber roars a guttural bellow that she's never felt before.

Her mother breaks away from her lip lock with this stranger - Amber learns his name and it even sounds like he's a jerk... Dean Williams, and Amber is glad she never sees his rat face. Laurel watches as her daughter rants and screams words that shouldn't even exist, because this is a complete turn around from the girl she said goodbye to earlier in the morning, and Amber runs her mother out of the house, an iron pan in her hands that she cracks on Dean's skull, and the reason she no longer has to see Dean is because he's dead, buried six inches deep underneath a birch tree with a tombstone marking how he dies. At the hands of a ten year-old girl. He died. That's the end of his story.

Her father, Jonas, comes home and finds Amber sitting in the middle of the living room of their house on the floor, sobbing, Tara who isn't even six yet, rubbing her back as the girl sobs uncontrollably. He places a hand underneath her chin, and Amber stares into her dad's gentle sky blue gaze, banana blonde hair wet from the afternoon rain, and Amber hugs him. Nowadays, Jonas's arms around her back are mere wisps of ghosts, because she never sees him while he's down in the mines, clamoring away at boulders for every second breaths death, and she's stuck wanting to hate him, but he's the only one who comforted her after the affair of her mother came to light. Laurel lives happily in the Seam with a boyfriend apparently, but Amber has no idea what the man's name is, and she's content that she does not know because she very may well go over and crack that man's skull open as well.

It's because of her mother that Amber does not love. It rips her heart out, stamped and crushed underneath the dirt where the word 'never' is written in blood. Amber reads in some 'professional' book in the school library that it means she's asexual, and that is perfect for her as it means she can focus on other things where sex does not matter to her, mainly protecting Tara from the incivilities of the known world around her.

The back door swings open again, known to Amber by the creaking of the hinges that resemble drawers shut at night, panted moans echoing against the wall, and she closes her eyes to block out the noise, the cacophonous noise, the vile screeches of love in mid-coitus, and everything stops as if an insect flies into the side of a building. Tara sits down next to her sister, lying down on the grass, arms crossed behind her head.

Amber follows suit and both Proctor sisters lay in the grass, looking up, and for a few moments there is absolute silence. Tara breaks it first, however, which Amber finds odd as her sister never likes being the center of attention. "I got told that Dad is going to be able to go by the reaping. He gets the day off after it's over, so we can go to the pond if you like."

The blonde nods along, a faint smile stretching across her lips. That sounds nice to Amber, a moment of pure halcyon life which all the impurities put on hold so she can relax. Amber lets out a sigh. "This feeling is the worst."

"What feeling?"

"Knowing what comes next after the reaping."

"And what would that be?"

Amber looks at Tara, a steely fire behind her eyes. "Sometimes I know the kid who gets picked, and other times I don't. When I do know them, no matter how well I do or do not, it makes me think. You know deep down, they aren't surviving. So it makes me wonder that if I got picked, would I do fine in the games?

Tara goes to lay on her side, eyes wide and mouth agape. "Why would you ever think about that? I'd rather not try my chances!"

"I'm volunteering for you if you're picked," Amber says, changing topics quite decisively, as they're getting into territory that will bother Tara because she no longer wants to continue this conversation. "It may be cliché, but you're the world to me. I can't live without you."

Her sister is silent, and Amber is fearful that she's scared her out of speaking, for that's quite the declaration to spout out without any preamble. Tara bites down on her lip, and winces. "I know Amber, I know." However, and Amber realizes this with a pang in her heart, that Tara does not say anything about volunteering in her stead.

Amber looks up at the clouds and pictures a world unlike her own. In the clouds is a king with a mighty lance, golden and gilded all over while he professes his love for the subjects of white fluff and rain. She pictures a palace, gardens growing rampant with grass that is a cotton candy pink, waterfalls of amaranthine stain glass, and violets that spring up on cobblestone paths. An entire existence naked to the human eye for it is far above the vast horizons that she cannot see. A place where the Hunger Games does not exist, and Amber can nearly taste the euphoria on her tongue, sweet and everlasting.

Tara sits up and hugs her knees to her chest, but Amber hardly registers anything as her picture warps into something much worse. The clouds darken, and down falls acid rain that hits her skin, dissolving, yet the blonde feels nothing - pain does not exist, it cannot exist, it shall never exist - and the palace crumbles like sand, the flowers wilt to a brackish green, the waterfalls sour with the acidic taste of blood, and the lance flies out of the king's hand and stabs him in the heart.

She lets loose a scream, flying upwards, and Tara is yelling her name again, only this time the sound is not coming through, and it will never come through. Amber cannot get the picture of the dead king out of her brain, no matter how hard she wills it. The expression is haunting, eyes open and glazed over, looking at a deathless night, a starless night that Amber does not want to see.

The face changes into Tara's, the eyes fill with a darkness unlike any other, and Amber's skin begins to burn, it begins to hurt, and she's screaming out the loudest wail of pain she's ever endured, as pain does exist, it does indeed hurt, and she cannot deny the fact any longer. Amber watches the clouds dissipate into a shower of glass, and the world forever goes black.

Long live the king, Amber Proctor, long may she reign.


Joshua Minthel: District 12 Male P.O.V (14)


"Thank you! Please come again!" shouts youthful Joshua Minthel, his left arm stretched out in a wave as he says goodbye to the last customer for breakfast, a portly old man with wiry pallid hair curled up at the sides. Joshua holds the handful of coins the old man gave him in a vice, counting out the sixty five cents for a cup of warm coffee brewed fresh and home made before dropping it in the change jar.

He walks through the dinky shack that holds as their restaurant and changes the Open sign to Close, taking a deep breath as he does. Joshua knows what happens next, what this means when they close early on a bright August morning. The Reaping awaits, sitting in his stomach deep and broken, a sharp rock imbedded somewhere between his ribcage and heart, waiting for a pickaxe to wrench it free.

Joshua sees his reflection in the mirror of the door when he shuts it, weathered sandpaper hair combed neatly for restaurant presentation, icy winter blue eyes, and peeling skin from his ears down to his neck. He runs a hand through his hair, messing it as the water slicks to his scalp and feels particularly uncanny. Joshua dislikes having to be so particularly tidy when running the Minthel Coffee House, which he takes pride in repeating as he's part of the reason why their restaurant is it's name. The Minthel Coffee House is a family owned and operated restaurant in the Seam, particularly in the poorest of the poor area because that's where his parents made the executive decision to place it.

The boy takes a look around the shack, and his heart swells with joy taking all the details in. There's nothing more than four or five tables situated in the space, nothing too large, yet nothing too small. Along the walls are chairs where individuals can sit down and enjoy their coffee, read the custom made comics and newspapers by Joshua's brothers, and eat their breakfast in their hands because there's no more space at the tables. Though the Coffee House is hardly anything fancy, the outturn of customers and guests wanting a quick bite to eat on their way to the mines is invaluable. He goes over to the coin and bill jar, counting out everything by hand. "We made fifty eight dollars and thirty cents this morning!" he shouts excitedly to his family, who are in the back cleaning up dishes and ingredients. Joshua's stomach growls, as he's woken up bright and early to help open the restaurant, and he hasn't had time to make anything to eat.

He peels off the apron hugging his waist and drops it in the basket by the counter where his mother puts the food ready to be served. An empty coffee pot rests against the wall where Joshua leans down to pour the rest out, warm smells of chocolate and hazelnut wafting into his nostrils, reminding Joshua of home with a smile. In the back, loud sounds of pots and pans colliding into a thunderous symphony of their own drown out the tiny fan in the corner blowing air into the kitchen.

Joshua remembers the day that President Jade Dermure comes from the sky in a massive moving house that floats, landing in the square. Two years ago, when he is ripe for the reaping, his father falls in front of Jade's path. She nearly has him shot before Joshua's father lets out his lifelong dream to run a restaurant in the Seam, because every other facility to eat at is stuck in the Merchant class, a place often too expensive because the Merchant families are stuck-up jerks. Jade lifts her nose up in disgust, but she promises to grant the Minthel family their lifelong dream.

Two days later, Joshua is standing in the middle of the abandoned shack being dressed up to be a restaurant, and his heart fills up with expectations. His dad is crying, overcome with joy, and his mother cannot stop smiling. He looks over at his brothers, Tommy and Ronald, who would rather be anywhere else in the world, but the Minthel family moves as one unit.

Smoke fills a corridor of the kitchen where his father works at sautéing a plate of wild mushrooms grown in the next door neighbor's garden so the Coffee Shop can use it for a wild mushroom and rice soup, an August specialty. Dave Minthel, with his onyx black hair and steely hazel eyes, looks at his son and quits moving the pan.

"How'd we do for the breakfast shift?" he asks, ruffling Joshua's hair.

"Almost sixty!" Joshua exclaims happily, throwing his arms around his father. In the corner, Joshua eyes both Tommy and Ronald glaring at him against the cabinets, their arms and legs covered in powder and flour from the pastries they sold earlier in the morning. They're jealous, as Joshua can read the inside of their head and see the hatred glimmering off their identically cold mahogany eyes. Joshua can only shrug at them and try to simmer off the anger. It's not his fault he's dad's favorite. Dave Minthel is allowed to love one child more than the other if he chooses to. Besides, their mother, Sara, loves both Tommy and Ronald as if they're angels.

"That's great! Maybe we can finally upgrade our fan! I know Miss Weathers wouldn't mind helping chip in a few dollars here and there," Dave says, a twinkle glistening across his face. Or perhaps it is the sweat dripping of his brow, Joshua is unsure how to tell. "Why don't you help your brothers clean the dishes? Mother is currently planting a few more vegetables over in Miss Weathers' backyard, so she can't do it like she usually does."

A pit of despair opens up in Joshua's stomach, as now both of his brother's have their glare curl up into a vicious smile. Though Joshua is older than Tommy and Ronald, his younger brothers are twins blessed with the height gene and tower over him by a good three inches, a height that bothers him and allows Joshua to get a many broken bones and trips to his room of the principal's office. Joshua drops his hands to his side, scoots away from his father who returns to sautéing the mushrooms, and he slinks over to the sink which is filled to the brim with dishes.

Joshua grabs a plate smeared with ketchup and washes it off. Added presences stir something uncomfortable behind his back, and then Tommy reaches forward and plants a hand on his brother's shoulder. "What, Joshua? Did Dad actually ask you to do something once in your life?"

"You going to cry about it like you always do?" Ronald antagonizes alongside Tommy, a chip-toothed grin making his insult slightly less effective due to the silliness of his face.

The oldest of the trio grits his teeth and shakes his head, refusing to answer. He's not going to fall into the trap of letting his brothers pick on him and he violently retaliate. Joshua recalls the last time he let his anger get out of control with a broken window, Ronald clutching at his arm and sobbing, and the bloodied shard of glass stuck in the oldest boy's hands when he drops it out of pure shock.

Tommy sneers, seeing his jab did not get through. "Hey, idiot! I asked you a question!"

"It's not polite to not answer when someone is talking to you, runt!" Ronald adds.

Joshua stays true to the course and continues wiping down the dish. He feels Tommy's hand release off his shoulder, both instantly relaxing, the back loosening up where his muscles feel less rigid. Fear paralyzes him however, when he registers that there are fingers slipping lower and lower, lower unlike anything he's comfortable with. It reminds him of a night, a night doused in green light with a man who has hands shrugged into the pockets of his jacket, a cold December air making Joshua feel lonesome, the curtains, the blood, the hands that roam, and then Tommy squeezes. Joshua drops the plate into the sink with a splash, and he turns on his heel, startling his younger brother.

He raises a fist and smashes it into Tommy's nose. The younger boy sprawls backwards, knocking Ronald over to the tiled floor. Tommy lets out a cry of pain, holding a hand up to his noise while scarlet seeps through the gaps. Joshua lowers his fist, the pressure around his crotch lightening up, and he's never felt more liberated than in this moment. Dave pauses from his cooking and rounds the corner, only seeing that one of his children is presumably clutching a broken nose and that one of his children did it.

"Joshua!" Dave exclaims.

"Dad, he touched my-"

"I don't care Joshua, just because he touched your arm does not mean you go and punch him!"

Joshua begins to protest, but Dave gives a glare his way that turns his blood to ice. Ronald struggles to his feet. "We were just trying to talk to him and he turned around and walloped Tommy on the nose!"

A new fire surges through the oldest Minthel sibling's blood, but he says nothing, instead letting the fiery rage fuel itself. Dave gently lifts Tommy's hand away from his nose, and wipes at some of the remaining blood, which is not gushing or seeping at any sort of strong force. Tommy lets out a weak sob, and flashes a glare at Joshua.

Dave looks at his oldest with appraising eyes. "You and I will discuss this after the reaping. Ronald, get me the gauze. Joshua, the reaping starts in an hour. I suggest you head down to the square and explain to the Peacekeepers why your brothers will be late to their first reaping. I really don't want Peacekeepers to come here tonight and break everything because we were late."

Joshua looks up at his father, voice silent as he's lost all urges to speak. He nods solemnly and races out of the restaurant, fingers dabbing away at the tears forming in the corner of his eyes. He runs and runs, never looking back as houses blur together and the grey drowns out into dark storm clouds, and the rain falls against Joshua's shoulders while he stares into the creepy stare from the stranger backing him up against the corner. Before he knows it, as he must've been running for what felt like twenty minutes, he's colliding into the line of boys and girls his age waiting to get their fingers pricked and stand like livestock, corralled for the reaping to take them away.

Slowly the line starts to move, and eventually the clouds reach high noon and cover up the brazen sky, the sunlight disappearing and the world turns into the cold underwater zone he's met many times before, and Joshua shudders as the Peacekeeper grabs the boy's finger, zaps it, and off he goes. When Joshua crawls into the fourteen year-old male section, he sees his father walk up with Tommy and Ronald. Tommy's nose is wrapped up with gauze, white bandages covering his freckled face, and Ronald's eyes are wide with fear.

He watches his brothers stand in line, whispering together about subjects he presumably thinks are either girls, working, the games, the reaping, or Joshua himself. Both Tommy and Ronald look away in fear as the Peacekeeper places their finger underneath the injector, and his gaze still follows them as they stand arm in arm in the twelve year-old section. The doors to the Justice Building open, and Joshua follows his gaze to stare at the victors before him.

District 12 has two still alive, and they've had as a collective group, four since the fated pair of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. The two left alive or both a pair who married young after their victories which were back-to-back in some strange coincidence during the 160 years. Dime Garcia, a stunning woman with gorgeous Seam olive skin that glistens every time she moves has always captured Joshua's eye even if she's in her late forties. Her husband, Mint Caswell, who won the year after Dime, is pure and a Merchant stereotype with radiant sunlight hair and startling bright blue eyes. Joshua takes pride, just like he does in the name of the family restaurant, that both District 12 victors still alive are normal functioning people, with no signs of PTSD or depression, and Dime takes to ballroom dancing, saying she has Latin blood in her veins, a Hispanic soul that shoots off fire with cardinal dresses of flame. Mint is a painter who is given permission by President Dermure to go beyond the fence and draw the visage and greenery of the outside world, the non-Panem world, and everything makes sense to both of them, that both victors live regularly.

Between them is the escort of District 12, a very-well known disaster in the making of a Mrs. Carlyle Limes, a woman in her mid-thirties with vibrant autumn leaf hair that is curled up in a bun. Painted nails, nails probably done by Mint given the attention to detail, stand out as this year's irregularity with her outfit, nothing more than a simple turquoise jumper up to her neck. Joshua wonders how she's not absolutely dying in this heat, as he's hardly unable to ever stand the sun beating down on him on any other day. He's learned, and this makes him afraid of any sort of arena like it, about a place called a desert. Apparently District 10 is something like that, a teacher tells him one school morning, where the temperatures reach far warmer and scalding than they do in District 12, and there's hardly a snowy winter out in Ten like there is in Twelve, which makes shudders crawl up and down Joshua's arms.

Carlyle taps the microphone and everyone jumps for a few seconds as the courtyard had been preciously silent and quiet until her boisterous self appeared. Joshua likes, and it's very rare he likes anything about the Capitol, that their escort is sane like Mint and Dime. She's born in the right place in the right time - something Joshua can forgive - but understands that there's hardly ever any joy behind what she does. Carlyle explains that she likes being an escort because there are other candidates in the running for that position with the Capitol kaleidoscope gaze, who see nothing but fame and fortune, and she's to try and make everything as bearable as possible.

"Good afternoon District 12! For those twelve year-olds out in the crowd who have not had the chance to meet me, I am Carlyle Limes, the escort for District 12 who will be accompanying the tributes this year alongside your victors Dime and Mint to the Capitol. This year is the 200th Hunger Games, our 8th Quarter Quell in Panem's history. This means that our government prepared a special outcome for this arena and the situation surrounding the games, though what the surprise is, we shall know soon. As things normally go, I shall draw from the bowl of ladies."

Joshua holds in his breath and closes his eyes. He has a few friends in the female section, several acquaintances, and others he'll feel nothing when they die, but he shares this moment of pain at times. "Anyone but..." he wills.

Carlyle reaches into the bowl and rips free a piece of paper, white and stark with the formidable black seal. The escort slowly walks up the microphone, and all of District 12 leans in for this precious and horrible moment. She unfurls the paper, and with a grim frown - Joshua knows that all other escorts usually read the slip with a smile, the sick bastards - "Amber Proctor!"

Joshua sees many heads in the girl's sixteen year-old section whirl around till their eyes are firm on the prize. He takes a look at her and notices that Amber is quite tall, taller than him, and she has a formidable build underneath the dainty dress clinging to her knees. He sees that Amber is stunned, clearly, by the open mouth, but she's looking back down the crowd at someone in the younger area of the girls group. Joshua is unable to crane his neck that far, but Peacekeepers troop down the stairs, batons drawn, and Carlyle bites down on her lips. A Peacekeeper roughly grabs Amber by the arm and drags her forward, and Joshua sees the girl is unable to register any other emotion than loss of something, and she's flung up onto the stage.

Carlyle reaches out and gives her a hand. "Amber, dear? May you like to say something into the microphone?"

Amber snaps her head at the escort, giving the woman quite the fright, and she takes the microphone with ease. "District 12!" she howls into it, causing everyone to cover their ears as Joshua gives a laugh at the fact that she does in fact show emotion- "If any of you touch my sister, Tara, you'll be sorry! I'll kill everyone to come back to her and save her! I mean it!" Joshua laughs again.

The escort pries Amber's death grip off of the microphone, tittering on her heels with an uncanny look on her face. "Okayyyy..." she drawls out with a sigh. "Now, the boys..." Carlyle walks to her right, keeping a hand on the microphone stand so Amber cannot take it in her own and violently react in some other unprecedented manner. Joshua pleads to the stars and sky that even though he hates Tommy and Ronald, part of him loves them and he'll never let anything get in their way.

"I can do it..." he says to himself. "If either is picked, I'll volunteer. I can do it."

Carlyle has a slip in her hands, and the syllables vibrate along the high rise buildings. "Joshua Minthel!"

There's one thing Joshua is unable to process, and that he hadn't said he could do it if he was the one to be picked. The words of his name echo in his ears, and the blood roars, and he pictures the empty coffee pot he forgot to clean up against the counter from earlier. The money from this morning's shift will never be split five ways, but four ways as he's buried in some casket. Joshua inches out from the section and slowly climbs the stairs. He keeps a straight face, though every pore on the inside is screaming and unleashing shouts of rage.

He stands next to Carlyle, utters his name, and blocks out the rest of what their escort says. Joshua looks over at Amber and catches her staring at some younger girl over in the District 12 section, someone he assumes is her sister, and it reminds him of his siblings. He flashes his eyes over to the same twelve year-old section and there is Tommy and Ronald, both boys evidently crying, and everything in Joshua's body snaps.

His brothers actually do care for him in some way or other, and he's about to leave. The last thing he ever truly does to his own siblings is break one of their noses and forget about the other.

Joshua pleads silently, eyes closed and he prays. He wants a pickaxe fresh from a morning work to come from the sky and crack open his skull, smash everything and break all his dreams, destroy the restaurant, and let the anger fester over and rage. It'll be better than the fate that is yet to come, it will forever be better than anything else he's ever experience. He wants to be pickaxed by dreams of death.

His plea, his pray, it forever goes unanswered.

The shorelines will run vermillion with his blood soon enough.


Alright! There we are ladies and gents, Chapter #7: Pickaxed Dreams of Death of Vermillion Shorelines, the District 12 reaping. I particularly loved writing Joshua's reaction to being reaped, and Amber's vision of a cloud kingdom shattered by everything wicked and evil in this world. And look there! A 6k chapter! Damn, I didn't expect that. I started writing at around 9:15 and here it is at 11:30 where I've finished... Woohoo two hours and a quarter. It is things like that which make me happy to be a writer, doing chapters like this. So, we have Amber Proctor and Joshua Minthel as our District 12 tributes, and I'm quite happy that they don't meet District 12 stereotypes, as there's no hunters or miners or bakers, or anything of the sort. We instead have two tributes with relationship issues among their siblings, and clearly Joshua has a dark past. Can anyone guess by the clues presented in this chapter of what happened to him, as there are two explicit occasions, horrible occasions that happened in his life. What about Amber? Clearly she struggles with fire in her veins... your opinions are welcomed! I'd love which tributes, including the D9 ones that you love, like, neutrally feel towards, dislike, and hate, as it feels like some of you aren't doing it nor understand exactly what I mean, and it'll help you out immensely when it comes to the Quell twist.

I did the RNG again and I find this ironic, that we've had District 8 picked for the Chapter 8, although it is the third reaping. I hope that we got a higher district, 1-4 for the one after, but it doesn't matter. I have already given a victor for District 8 once, though I won't say what story of mine in the Hunger Games universe I wrote because that'll spoil that story quite heavily, but I digress. I clearly cannot give you guys a deadline date because I was three days behind this one, but here it is nonetheless. If you guys need an SYOT to read while you're waiting, I highly suggest reading PeonyPierce's Sweets to the Sweet, which I actually have two tributes in, a Mr. Damon Millers of District 2 and a Mr. Atlas Cian of District 4! Please review! Your opinions matter, and remember, reviewing lets me love you! I will shoot for another two week window of this reaping, Chapter #8: Bloodied Velvet, the District 8 reaping. Thank you all so much for reading! Have an amazing day! Love you all! Bye!

~ Paradigm