District Five: Wake Me Up When September Ends

Summer has come and passed

The innocent can never last

Wake Me Up When September Ends, Green Day

ANNNDDD I'm back people! Sorry for the horribly sporadic and distant chapters, but I'm not giving up on this story, and I hope you all won't give up on me! We're traveling out of the career districts and into the secretive District 5. Our tributes here are Blanche Alucard and Surdon Crees for the young ladies, who were created by HoppsHungerFan, and Flare Whispworth and Jet Wyre for our boys, created by Girl With a Flower Crown. These guys are all pretty interesting, so let's see what they end up doing for the story here!

Blanche Alucard, aged 16

Blanche was probably one of the few people not glad of a break from work on Reaping Day. Working kept her mind busy, and that was a good thing when so many thoughts whizzed around her mind. Her friends called her a workaholic, Blanche called it dedication and providing for her family. Although her mother primarily made up their income working at the electricity plant and made halfway decent money comparatively, Blanche's own wages from the accounting statistics company she worked at were greatly appreciated.

"Blanche, Blanche, get up!" a teenage boy's excitable voice stage whispered into her ear. Blanche startled awake from the surprise, opening her eyes to see her thirteen year old brother Kipper standing with an excited expression on his face.

"Kip, what do you want?" she groaned, turning on her side to stare at him properly.

"Let's go for a run before we have to get ready for the reaping," he said. She had half expected this. Ever since he was ten years old, and she thirteen, Kipper had woken her up to go for a run with him. She did find that this helped get rid of some of her jitters, but she never let him see that.

"All right," Blanche grumbled, sitting up and reaching for a hair tie on her bedside table. "Wait for me outside, would you?"

Kipper nodded enthusiastically and left the bedroom, leaving Blanche in relative quiet. The only noises were the morning sounds of a few bird calls and a gentle wind. As he left, Blanche finished tying her hair into a ponytail and stepped out of bed, getting dressed in the clothes she had worn the previous day. Finally decent, she left her bedroom and the house, seeing Kip waiting at the end of their small sidewalk.

"Let's go!" He was bursting with nervous energy, Blanche knew very well. The two siblings began into a fast jog, making it a few streets before they slowed a little to catch their breath.

"I bet I can beat you to that big rock," Blanche challenged, pointing out the rock to Kipper.

Nodding, he began their countdown. "Three… two… one!"

They took off, sprinting as fast as they could to reach the boulder. Kip pulled ahead almost at the end, slapping the rock with his hand as he passed it first.

"Haha, you lose Blanche!"

"Yeah, yeah," she shrugged it off. It never mattered to her that Kip was a better runner than she was. She didn't see a practical point to his pastime, but he was well on the path to be a star on the high school track team in a couple years.

They both climbed up onto the rock, breathing heavily as they listened to rustling branches.

"Blanche?" Kipper's voice had now turned vulnerable. Blanche looked at him, wondering what he wanted to ask her. "Are you going to get reaped today? You have a lot of entries.

Blanche had a total of thirty-five entries, because she had taken full tessera rations since she had been eligible, but Kipper did not need to know that.

"Yeah, I do have a lot of entries, but not so many more than lots of other girls," she reminded him. "My odds are just about the same as almost all the other girls my age. I'm going to be fine. Even if I do get picked, I'm pretty smart, so I can definitely make it back here." She was not at all confident of this, but she wouldn't tell him that either.

"I guess," he said, worry still in his tone. "I just don't want you to go away. You're the only one who runs with me."

Blanche gave him a tight hug. "I'm not going anywhere," she promised. There was a third thing she would not tell Kipper.

This was not a promise she could guarantee.

Jet Wyre, aged 8

Jet sat at the large breakfast table in the city orphanage, the sounds of rowdy boys surrounding him as he tried to eat his porridge quietly. Breakfast always made him nervous, because all the boys were shouting to friends, or throwing bread, or having contests to see who could give the loudest belch.

Jet was a loner here at the orphanage, and he had only a couple of very close friends that did not live with him in this orphanage. Friends with families and pets and real homes. He envied them quite a lot, but he was too shy to ever tell his friends that.

Jet finished his oatmeal as quickly as he could and then ran upstairs to change into his clothes he would wear to the Reaping. He could not believe that he would be eligible to be sent into the arena for this reaping, but he knew his chances of getting chosen were extremely slim. There were so many other eligible boys, why would it be him.

Arriving in his room, he found that his best shirt, which was really nothing very special, had a new stain on it, he started to cry. He could never help it when he wanted to cry, it just happen. Lots of the boys made fun of him for this, but it wasn't truly his fault.

Wiping his tears, Jet swiped up his clothes and hurried into the bathroom before one of the other boys burst in and made him cry again.

An hour later, he was walking with the rest of the orphanage kids to the town square to sign in for the reaping. Jet made sure he was near the back of the pack, so that the other kids wouldn't see him cry when the check in people stuck his finger. He did his best to ignore the pain of the needle when the woman jabbed his finger, but it was not successful. Once again, Jet was crying. Determinedly not looking at the needle woman, Jet walked into the crowd and situated himself with a group of other eight year olds

Hopefully, he could stay out of some trouble, and keep himself from crying. If he couldn't it would be another embarrassing day in his largely embarrassing life.

Surdon Crees, aged

As long as Surdon had been old enough to be required at the Reapings at age three, she remembered one thing about the possible tributes as they stood waiting for the fated tribute to be chosen: they all had looks of pure fear on their faces. Sure, you had the oddball seventeen or eighteen year old who either didn't seem to care if they went into the Games to die, or twelves barely old enough to realize that they might not return home alive if chosen.

Now Surdon was among that crowd of fearful children, three years earlier than she should have ever been entered in the first place. These Quarter Quells sure made life interesting, as the Capitol citizens called it. Surdon just called it cruel. Who were they to send seven and eight year olds into the arena to die? That's all the kids were, fodder for the older tributes to mow down before moving on to the more challenging tributes.

The Capitol never cared what happened in the districts as long as they got their quotas of supplies from them, as long as they stayed docile and subdued under the oppression of the Hunger Games. Her parents were living proof of that.

Last year, while she had been walking home from school one afternoon with Aslyn and Greison, she smelled smoke on the air. She didn't think anything of it until she reached the end of her street, where you had a clear view of the huge power plant that took up the east part of the subdivision. The sight was always familiar to her, as always, but she quickly realized there was something off. The building was engulfed in flames, and the smoke was stronger here. The siblings hurried to get as close to the scene as she could before the responding Peacekeepers stopped them among a crowd of other onlookers.

It seemed to be hours before survivors came out of the building, although she later realized it couldn't have been more than twenty minutes or a half hour. She carefully scanned the fifty or so people leaving the building, gripping Aslyn's hand for all it was worth, and was relieved to see her mother, father, and Isack walking out. Isack and her father seemed to be supporting her mother. It later turned out that she had had a severe head wound, which would take several months to fully heal. Her father was mostly unscathed, but Isack had severe burns on his hands which rendered him practically useless for close to a month.

There were no reimbursements for injuries or deaths. Oh sure, the oldest children of those who didn't get out of the building, which had a total of thirty-seven casualties, recieved a Medal of Valor. What did that do for them, though? They couldn't sell it, as they weren't made out of anything but zinc or maybe copper. It was small comfort in the face of the tragedies.

Surdon was brought out of her reverie by the feedback from the mic onstage. It had been given a sharp tap tap tap by the District Five escort, a man named Jensen Tyriul who made inane comments that he thought were clever but weren't at all.

"Welcome to the One hundred and twenty fifth Annual Hunger Games reaping. This year, four of you lucky children will have the opportunity to come to the capitol and participate in the fifth Quarter Quell." He chuckled at himself, as though congratulating himself for being so witty. Surdon simply rolled her eyes. "Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor."

He gave no further ceremony, but simply hurried on to the drawing of the four unlucky children who would be sent to die.

"Flare Whispworth, please come on up. You are the elder male tribute this year!" Jensen called through the crowd. A stirring came from the section of thirteen year olds across the aisle, and a blond boy with a shocked and puzzled expression on his friendly looking face. Surdon thought she recognized him, but disregarded it.

The reaping continued with the younger boy, Jet Wyre, a tiny kid no older than Surdon herself, who was shoved out into the aisle, where he fell into a heap and began to sob. She felt bad for the kid, because he seemed to already have lost. If he'd been smart, he would have acted brave for the cameras.

Jensen now moved over to the two girls bowls, filled with small white slips. Surdon knew that somewhere deep in the bowl, one slip with her own name was there. She hoped it would not be drawn.

The older girl was chosen first. Jensen called the name out for the crowd to hear it. "Blanche Alucard, come on up please!" A girl about sixteen years old came from the crowds. She looked like she did not want to be everyone's focus, but that would never have happened with her long red-brown hair. Blanche walked briskly up onto the stage, standing next to Flare but not looking at the younger boy.

Jensen moved over to the final bowl, and Surdon held her breath. A horrible, sick feeling welled up in her stomach, and she almost wanted to throw up. As the name was pulled, Surdon tried to convince herself. It can't be me. I only have one entry. It's one slip of paper among the thousands of other possible girls.

The name was read to the crowd, and Surdon was hardly surprised. So much bad luck had befallen her family, it was only fitting.

"Surdon Crees is the second female tribute from District Five!" Jensen called to the deathly silent crowd. Surdon knew there was no hiding, so she went as fast as she dared go up onto the stage, standing silently on the other side of Blanche.

No one took any of their places. The wind was all that spoke for them.

Flare Whispworth, Aged 13

Flare sat silently in the big armchair that was provided in the room they would say their goodbyes in. It was a nice room, certainly, but Flare didn't care about the finery. He was going to die, and pretty soon. Sure, he might outlast some of the littles, as they were beginning to be called at school, but against the likes of the careers? No way would he come back the Victor.

No one came for about twenty minutes, and Flare was beginning to worry. Would Dad not come to say goodbye? Would it be too painful for him? What about Piper? Surely she'd pluck up her courage and come say goodbye.

As he'd expected, his Dad eventually came. No mom, she had died several years ago, when Flare was only four. In many ways, he supposed this made it easier to cope with. He didn't have the memories his father did. You didn't miss what you never knew you had, right?

"Flare…" his dad whispered the words desperately, as if they were a spell that would free him from the Games and certain death. "Flare… I don't know how I'm going to make it without you… without anyone now."

Flare knew that this would bring his father to a very dark place, and Flare was going to take steps to make sure his dad would be okay.

"Dad, don't worry. I'm going to do my best. I think if I'm sneaky and I don't take risks, I can make it at least partway." He didn't tell his father his contingency plan, in the almost certain event of his death.

"I know you're smart and sneaky, Flare," his dad murmured. "But you're so pale. If you're in a forest, you'll need to hide carefully."

Gently, Flare hugged his father. They were very nearly the same height. "Don't worry, I'll do my best to stay safe. Maybe it'll help if I make a strong alliance, maybe with District 9. They're usually strong from the fields."

Flare's father took something out of his pocket. It was pale blue, and Flare immediately recognized it.

"Mom's quilt." he whispered. "You cut a piece off?"

"Well, I didn't think they'd let you have the whole blanket, because it would be an unfair advantage, so I just cut a little corner. I'll sew it back on in the future."

They continued to give each other false hope for a few more minutes, and then his father had to leave the room. The empty chair was filled after only a few minutes, however, as a young girl hurried in and wrapped Flare in a nearly suffocating embrace.

"Flare, this is totally unfair," she told him, staring at him solemnly. It seemed aws though she thought she were talking to a ghost. After all, that's basically all he was now. A ghost of Flare Whispworth. He knew he would not be returning to District Five, not outside of a wooden crate.

Whelp, there's another chapter, much quicker than even I anticipated. These characters have their strengths and weaknesses, but who will come out on top? Only time… and more chapters… will tell.

Sorry for my completely sporadic updates, I'm completely at the mercy of my schedule. I have hope that District Six will be sooner than a month as well, but we will have to see. What do you think so far? We're nearly halfway through the reapings! Then the story can really start! I have many people to thank, but mostly my lovely beta reader, SadieAnnabetMellark. Everyone, go check her profile out!

Also, a note for those who are confused as to what happened to Mora/Mariana. Specifically, her name change. This is due to a set of circumstances that I will not explain, but you may PM me if you are curious. I didn't get any angry messages about it, so I guess none of you really noticed.

As usual, here are a few questions for you all to go ahead and answer! I really do appreciate those of you who answer them!

Who do you like best from this district: Blanche, Jet, Surdon, or Flare?

What do you think they will all place? Bloodbath? Final 8? In between? Do you think any are victor material?

Will Blanche's workaholic antisocial ways make her an undesirable ally to others?

Jet is a bit of a crybaby, but do you think the capitol will take some pity and sponsor him if he makes it past bloodbath?

Surdon seems to be a bit of a pessimist, but will her skepticism be her greatest weapon in the arena?

Flare seems to have simply given up, but do you think that he can pull himself together and at least make it through bloodbath?

Do you all have any ideas for storylines for any of these guys?